Congratulations, Hannah, Nathan, and Aiden – it’s a girl!
Hailey Anne Draper was born at ten after eight this evening;
weighed in at six pounds, nine ounces; and looks just like her beautiful
Mommy. Ethan, Ehlana, and I know that
she’ll have the same blue eyes as her father and brother; but it’ll be a while
before everyone else finds out about that.
Hannah went into labor shortly after opening the bakery this morning;
and news of Hailey’s arrival reached the Inn
while we were there for game night.
Before I get to the rest of that story, though, let’s back
up and recap the rest of what’s been another one of those tweeird zone days for
me.
It actually feels like Spring again, though not quite warm
enough in the early morning to take our Tai Chi out by the river yet. I really hope it won’t be much longer before
we can do that! We had a standard school
and work day breakfast, and I was ready to go early enough to meet up with
Rowen at her house before going on to school.
While we were getting to enjoy a nice weather day, it was considerably
colder for me in every class today.
There wasn’t a peep on the school grapevine that had anything to do with
Michael and me, but I knew that something had gotten Lisa fired up in a bad
way; and she was empathically screaming at me pretty much right from the first
time she saw me this morning.
Lisa was momentarily diverted when she came into first class
with her friends and found a little treat gift on her desk, but that didn’t
distract her for long; and I was on the receiving end of icy glares and frowns
all the way through until lunchtime. I
was ready to escape all of that by then; ate my lunch in record time; and
headed for the music room ahead of Rowen while she finished eating. Michael came with Rowen, and we were apparently
witnessed by someone looking too chummy and happy; because Lisa met up with
Rowen and me on our way to Social Studies, and wanted to have a little talk
with me.
While Stephanie was probably the only person who knew what
had happened last night with Michael and me, Lisa had gotten the news flash
that I’d spent some do-not-disturb alone time with him at the Inn; and as soon
as Rowen left us alone; she hit me with the full ‘I hope you’re happy – didn’t
take you long to steal my boyfriend’ rant.
Just as a momentary aside; do all Magi Masters suck at being
tweens? There really isn’t much of
anything written about dealing with ‘normal’ tween and teen life, but there’s
no doubt in my mind that I don’t do tween very well at all.
Keeping all of the secrets I have is one thing, but I don’t
like lying. Unfortunately, Lisa
alternated between accepting anything that could be twisted to fit her theory;
doubting anything that didn’t; and accusing me of flat-out lying to her half
the time. Trying to remind her that I
hadn’t even crossed over and wasn’t interested in dating any boys earned a
derisive laugh and a comment that I won’t repeat here. She was all too happy to believe me when I
agreed with her assertion that I did, in fact, love Michael; but then she
instantly flipped back to disbelief when I told her that had nothing to do with
the fact that I still don’t want to date him – or any other boy. The rest of the details of our little chat
should probably be left unreported. Lisa
really is nice, but she’s hurt; needs to be angry at someone; and just totally
lost it for a while.
We were late getting to class, and needless to say, we
didn’t end that tweeird zone moment with a hug, but getting that out of her
system did at least seem to drain some of the anger out of Lisa; and she pretty
much ignored me for the rest of the afternoon.
Not having the glares and frowns was better, and the empathic vibes were
only a problem if I was close enough to her – which I tried hard not to be whenever
possible.
Rowen and I were tempted to skip work after school so we
could enjoy the nice weather, but decided against that; and I went home to work
in the office after stopping in for a short visit with her parents at the
computer store. Alicia took Ethan and
Ehlana to the park to play, so I was able to kick things up into Magi-gear
while they were gone; and had everything I wanted to get done finished in time
to help Mom with making dinner. Since
Uncle Adam was busy at the clinic, Aunt Leanne had dinner with us too, and
after cleaning up, we went for a walk; collected Grandma and Grandpa along the
way; and eventually ended up at the Inn for
game night.
I was not surprised to find out that Lisa wasn’t there
tonight, but two of her friends were; and I was really glad that nobody tried
to pair me up with Michael. Rebecca
partnered with him instead; and they had fun together – something he needed as
much as anything else right now. Some of
that fun happened when Rowen and I were competing directly against them, and
Michael and I were being watched closely anytime we were near each other; so I
probably wasn’t the only one feeling like I was in the tweeird zone now and
then all evening. There was no doubt
that a full report would be sent to Lisa once her friends were home again, and
though we didn’t give them anything ‘good’ that they might have been hoping
for; I expect that a little reporter bias will make sure that Lisa gets
whatever nuggets she needs to stay mad at me for a while longer.
Getting back to the news about Hailey’s birth, we officially
got the news via a text message from Aunt Deborah, but Mom, Ethan, Ehlana, and
I new through our link with Uncle Adam.
Dad and Aunt Leanne can’t sense some of the tiniest changes in our link,
and we only felt something this time because Hailey is as special as her big
brother is; and she kept the people who were there protecting her very busy
while she was being born. The gaming in
the dining room didn’t stop, but we did have a rolling mini birthday celebration
for the newest member of our town and her happy family.
While having a member of my family on the winning team for
the game night Championship wasn’t as exciting as having a new baby was for the
Drapers; that was still fun for us too. Miranda
had taken advantage of Aunt Leanne’s temporary single status to partner with
her, and not only did they win, but I got the added bonus of having Aunt Leanne
distracted enough with trying to get that win for Miranda that she didn’t even
try to play matchmaker with me tonight.
We left the Inn right after
the games were over and stopped in at the clinic on our way home. I didn’t expect to get to meet Hailey then,
and we didn’t, but Ethan and Ehlana got to spend a little time with Aiden; and
Aunt Leanne was staying to help Uncle Adam and Aunt Deborah – especially since
Aunt Deborah was getting so close to her own due date; and had been on her feet
way too long today already. I’ll take a
wild guess that Aunt Leanne is going to have a long night, and probably take
the day off from work tomorrow if she can.
Mom and Dad offered to bring Aiden home with us tonight, and
I think he would have liked to do that, but he was spending the night with
Hannah’s parents instead, so we were on our own when we walked home from there. Since the twins weren’t exactly ready to
sleep, Mom did a Magi lesson with all three of us while Dad took care of some
work in the office before I helped her get them ready for bed and tucked in for
the night. I’ve been in my room since
then, and it’s pretty much just been a standard study and computing night with
just a little keyboard music time thrown in to help me wind down a bit.
My end-of-lunchtime conversation with Lisa is the main
reason I’m not ready to sleep. I really
can’t be mad at her, but that doesn’t mean that I wasn’t hurt by a lot of the
things she said, and now that I’ve had time to think about it more; it’s
actually shocking to see and hear the dark side let loose when it’s coming from
someone as kind and nice as Lisa. I
pretty much never think about it, but that kind of thing basically never
happens in public in Witch Falls, and this was the first time I’d been on the
receiving end of a private rant like that since moving here. I’m sure that part of the reason for that is
because Magi of the Light need to be trained from birth to keep as tight a
control over our darker emotions to make sure we don’t lose control of our
power; and it’s scary to think about what might happen if I ever lost it like
Lisa did today.
I definitely don’t like what I can imagine in a scene like
that, so I’ll just need to make sure that never happens.
It’s past-time for me to be sleeping, and though it will
still be a while before I’m ready to pass out for a while; that’s all I have
for my journal tonight, so...
...until next time, this is Magi Master Cassie Proctor;
logging out!
